A tweet leads to sweet music

Andrea Capozzoli performs this week at Club Cafe in Pittsburgh.

By Scott Beveridge

PORCHVIEW, Pa. – A tweet on the Net was enough this week to take me away from a project around the house on a recession-proof vacation close to home this week.

The independent 91.3fm WYEP used Twitter to promote another one of its Third Thursdays happy hours that provide live performances by the best local musicians, free food and beer.

The band, “Meeting of Important People,” was on the menu alongside chips, pretzels and beer from Pennsylvania Brewing Co.

I left after few songs at the station’s community headquarters in Pittsburgh’s trendy South Side district because the music, while it had a good beat, was too loud to tolerate.

An unexpected reward, though, came around the corner at Club Cafe, where a female rhythm and blues singer was on stage.

Pittsburgh native Andrea Capozzoli immediately drew me inside the lounge at 56 S. 12th St., and her talent, and especially those scat numbers, kept me there until the set was over.

The decision was set when she performed the number, “Can you stay for a while.”

An instructor at Berklee School of Music in Boston, she also held her own on the keyboard and when she pulled out a muted trumpet. Her guitarist, Casper Gyldensoe, was spot on with his performance, too.

Capozzoli’s love songs were perfect for this dim, intimate venue accented with blue and plum walls and twinkle lights strung on tree branches around the ceiling. There were just a dozen people in the audience, making it seem as if they were at a jam session in her family room. All she needed was sexy, silk ballroom gown to melt the room, where everyone was keeping time with the beat.

“You got to make time to make love,” she crooned.

It would be hard not to fall in love with her voice.

It’s too bad that I didn’t purchase one of her albums before leaving to later liven up the mood at home during that miserable job of painting the entrance hall. Click here to listen to a sample of her music.

Meanwhile, Club Cafe wasn’t the place to seek out a good meal. The menu is limited to such small dishes as chili and pizza. The bruschetta pizza with green and black olives I selected arrived undercooked, and it didn't appear in any way to resemble bruschetta.

And while Pittsburgh is so lucky to have WYEP, the station needs to find another room to hold its concerts, or at least break a second door from the lobby into the studio to ease the congestion. The room is just too cramped.